Article excerpt

WHEN we consider what kind of a social philosophy we need for
the 1990s, we have to ask ourselves not just what it will do for
individual freedom, important as that is, and not just what it will
do for the GNP. We also need to ask what effect it will have on the
quality and vitality of our public life, on our ethical standards,
our charitable impulses, our interest and involvement in public
affairs, and our capacity to mobilize enough trust in one another
to enable us to cope effectively with the common problems that face
us.

We may not need a larger government. We may need a smaller
government. But if we are to restore respect for government, we
must accord it a truly respected place as an institution that has
valuable functions to perform and deserves its fair share of our
ablest people to serve in its ranks. We may not wish to legislate
morality - surely not - but if we want to improve ethical
standards, we should recognize that the kind of social environment
we support and the kind of incentives and recognition we emphasize
officially do have effects on the level of morality that our
society is likely to achieve.

We certainly shouldn't force people to vote, or to be involved
in their community. But we can at least attach as much importance
to encouraging the duties of citizenship as we do to its rights and
its liberties. It is a weakness of the prevailing ideology in this
country that it does not address those issues, or even to regard
them as tremendously important.

The other weakness in the prevailing ideology is that it
proceeds from an unnaturally pessimistic view of human nature. It
tends to treat us all as basically self-interested creatures who
put private material rewards above everything else. That is why
financial incentives are emphasized as the key to motivating
people. That is at least one reason why so much emphasis is placed
on markets, because they promise to harness our natural avarice for
constructive social ends. That is why government is feared -
because it may empower majorities to invade individual freedoms for
their own selfish ends.

In the last analysis, no system can rely so heavily on personal
gain and private ambition and somehow have it all turn out for the
good. No laws, no police, no regulations, no invisible hand will
ever manage to keep all of these self-interested motives completely
in check or mobilize them to meet all of the needs that must be met
in our society. That is why, in my view, any viable ideology that
we choose for the future must give a prominent place to
strengthening those aspects of human nature that are more positive,
more generous, more other-regarding, more civic minded than is the
pursuit of private gain. …